


Singing in the Concrete Dust

by MountainRose



Series: Tumblr Prompts [16]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Baby, Child In Danger, M/M, Medical evac, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:58:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainRose/pseuds/MountainRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shh, hey, it’s okay, I— I’m gonna look after you, you’ll be fine. Auntie— Your aunt is gonna uh… give me your mom’s number, and then there’ll be milk and blankets, and a story— would you like a story?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Singing in the Concrete Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompted:   
> Is it too late to prompt? Would love to see Steve just falling head over heels in love seeing Tony holding a baby and calming her/him by singing a lullaby to them when the baby gets lost after a battle. Thanks.

 

Some fights happen too quickly, are too abrupt, for a real evacuation. Sometimes it’s Cap’s job, he’s inspirational, and sincere, and it works out pretty well, but sometimes it was just whoever is first on the scene, and this time, that was Tony.   
  
The building was structurally sound; the skycycle had ploughed through internal walls, but barely cracked the loadbearing one it fetched up against. Tony had his speakers on full, and he broadcasted on every radio channel, tapping into wireless and phones, to get the message across:   
  
"Go down, get into the subway, get down, get out."   
  
The thermal scans weren’t clear, not by a long shot; there were injured scattered through the worst-damaged floor, and he stepped as lightly as he could around the debris of four apartments, intermixed and scattered.   
  
"Hello! Anyone walking, please take the stairs at the center of the building! They’re safe, I checked myself, there’s medical attention waiting for you at the parking lot of the next building over; keep right! The firemen will be…coming up, on your left. Fuck." He let his fifth repetition of the spiel die down as he crouched next to a casualty.   
  
Young, seventeen, maybe, and bleeding steadily from a headwound, but most significantly, with a baby cradled carefully to her chest.   
  
"Iron Man to Fire and Rescue." She was breathing shallowly, her hands limp on the baby’s back, but they (green jumpsuit, yellow shoes, no way of telling if they were a boy or girl) were cradled by a papoose, safe on her chest. Nothing visible, no tears, and no blood, awake and shocked quiet, but probably not hurt.   
  
"Putting you through, and…" their com’s operator, before the click of channels connecting to the F&R radio system. "Go ahead, Iron Man, line set."   
  
"Requesting immediate medevac, fifth floor, east corner, two casualties; young woman and baby, repeat: I have a baby to evacuate." The scrape of rubble and a distant burst of gunfire dropped him into a shielding crouch over the pair. "Zone is hot, incoming fire, hurry."   
  
A bullet pinged off the armour, followed by a burst of four more; semi automatic, antipersonnel rounds— He spun during a lull and blasted the skycycle’s pilot back into a wall. Three more blitzed past the broken window, scattering lead through the hole and forcing Tony to open out the armour, like a flower, to keep the casualties covered.   
  
"Negative, Iron Man! We are pinned down! Casualties are making it out, but there’s too much strafing in the street. Hold position, just until we get Hawkeye to cover us!" That might just be too late—   
  
A frightened moue drew his attention back; the girl was awake, her eyes wide and terrified.   
  
"Oh my god, oh, god, Iron Man?"   
  
He nodded, trying on a grin for reassurance. “Hang tight, kiddo, the hunky firemen’ll come get us any minute, you’re gonna be fine.”   
  
Her eyes blew wide in terror, looking over his shoulder, and he hunkered down again. Another spray of lead through the window clattered against the suit.   
  
"—ke her, get her out of here, please, oh god, I can’t feel my legs, you’ve got to—" she fumbled with the straps of the baby carrier, her fingers unfamiliar with the latches. She had an idea, obviously, and Tony cast about for cover, something, anything, to hide behind, because he wasn’t leaving her here, and he wasn’t getting a baby in the suit.   
  
"Allright, I’ve got, her, you’re gonna be fine, okay? I’m gonna send you to Thor, and the medics. Tell them about your legs, and I’ll keep Missy safe, okay?"   
  
She nodded, trusting and terrified, pulling the buckles away with uncoordinated hands. “Emily, her name, Emily Digby— Her mom’s gonna be so worried, please—”   
  
Tony smiled back, trying to keep her calm. “Emily, good name. You’re a babysitter? You’ve done a great job, you were protecting her unconsciously, and she’s fine.”   
  
"A-aunt. Here, get her out of here— fireman’ll be here soon, I’ll be fine, right?" She smiled up at him with something horribly like resignation in her expression, but fucked if he was gonna let that happen. There was a concrete cube twelve feet away, where the stairs boxed in the HVAC, and he’d be safe— they’d be safe there.   
  
She couldn’t lift Emily, her hands shook too much, so Tony scooped her up, leaving the armour’s gauntlets empty and spread over them for cover. He pulled Emily close, shielded by his body, and crawled out of the last of the suit. A command gesture, the same one that had saved Pepper’s life in Malibu Point, and the suit formed up over the Aunt of the Year. Her eyes went wide, then vanished behind the helmet.   
  
"Get her to safety, JARVIS, then come get me. Go!"   
  
The armour shot out of the building, held stiff as a backboard, and Tony dove for the cover of the HVAC unit, doubled over to keep their heads down, and both arms curled carefully around the silent baby.   
  
"Iron Man, you’ve got four on your tail," Clint reported, and Tony cringed; JARVIS would have to lose them before he could deliver the casualty to her ambulance.   
  
"It’s not me! I’m not in the suit, it’s a casualty; back injuries, head injury, couldn’t lift her myself, and, there’s a kid. We’re hunkered down, pretty safe, just keep them off the armour!" He wormed his way behind the steel of the aircon, and into the cavity under the risers of the concrete staircase. The sounds of the battle softened, muffled by the cover, and he put his shoulder to the wall, back towards the vulnerable opening to keep Emily away from stray shrapnel.   
  
"Shit, alright. I got J’s back. Stay safe, Iron Man." Clint clicked off active comm, and Tony was left with the sound of sirens and bullets. He reached up to turn his comm over to open receiver, to keep track of the fight, and the firemen, but the movement shifted Emily enough for her to get a good look at him.   
  
He looked back into blue eyes just starting to turn darker, too wide with fright, and saw the moment she decided she was safe enough to demand better from the universe.   
  
She could really, really cry.   
  
Her face screwed up and flushed red and Tony’s heart broke, he couldn’t look at that abject misery; she had no idea what was going on, no way of knowing anything but ‘loud-scary-bump-stranger’. He pulled her back to his chest and her little hands clung tight to his skin, strong enough to dig her teeny tiny fingernails in, and make it perfectly clear that she wanted to be as close as he could physically manage.   
  
He did his best to keep the arc reactor from hurting her, and held her to his shoulder, rocking as best he could in the limited space.   
  
"Shh, hey, it’s okay, I— I’m gonna look after you, you’ll be fine. Auntie— Your aunt is gonna uh… give me your mom’s number, and then there’ll be milk and blankets, and a story— would you like a story?"   
  
Emily wasn’t appeased by the sound of his voice; he was too unfamiliar, and the rough edge of it probably wasn’t helping, but he was stressed out of his mind, okay?   
  
"Okay, how about a song, do you like music? Hmmm, hmm.. ‘Oh where  _ mmhhmh laalaala mm _ ," he started, his voice breaking on the second syllable, and the seventh, until he stopped to clear his throat of the concrete dust.   
  
Emily was soaking his collar with tears, everything had to be frightening, right now, and he couldn’t stand it. “Oh we may n _ mmhhm hmm, nmm _ ,  _ laaa laaah ah _ ,”   
  
She started quieting down, and he risked a glance over his shoulder, hoping no one had landed in the wreckage to see where their dead pilot had got to.   
  
He half sang, half hummed the round, swaying in time to lull her into listening through her crying, until she started listening properly, tears slowing into hiccups. His heart lightened again, just enough to feel fear again. Stuck in a broken-open apartment building without the suit and without any defences, with this fragile little life literally breathing against his skin.   
  
Awwww hell.   
  
————————————   
  
The crying cut off long before Steve could get to them, and once he was closer, Tony’s singing died down with a breathless croak, too. Steve’s heart leapt into his throat. The stairwell was filled with twisted metal, the remains of a skycycle, but Steve tore through it like tissue paper. The firemen at his back carted off the debris he dropped, leaving the way clear as soon as he could break it into pieces.   
  
"Tony! We’re nearly there!"   
  
"Steve?" Came the quiet call, down the stairs, rather than across the comm.   
  
"Yeah, I’m coming. Hold on!"   
  
"We’re okay, how’s the Aunt— the girl I put in the suit?"   
  
Steve wrenched at the skycycle’s front fork, tearing it out of the inch-deep furrow it had gouged in the door frame, and then kicked it through into the apartment itself. “She’s still in it, but she’s breathing. You lose your HUD?”   
  
Tony should have known all this, JARVIS should be telling him, and Steve tore through a piece of bullet-proof siding with the edge of the shield in haste.   
  
"Y-yeah. Sorry."   
  
Steve shook his head in denial, even though they weren’t in eyeshot yet. “Nearly there. How’s the kid?”   
  
"She likes folk, but not Holst. We’re— work in progress. No injuries I can see. Come get me Steve, please—"   
  
Tony didn’t say please, didn’t ask for much at all, ever, and Steve gave up on clearing the way, and rammed the twisted metal with his shoulder braced behind the shield.   
  
It gave, scattering steel across the concrete dust, and Steve tumbled after it, barely keeping his feet.   
  
"Tony, I’m through, where are you!?"   
  
A little whimper, followed by Tony’s shushing, led Steve around a twisted hunk of machinery and straight to Tony and the baby. His HUD was broken into two pieces, the earphones tucked into the baby’s hat and the monocle broken on the ground. Blood oozed from a graze on the back of Tony’s shoulder, and Steve dropped to his knees next to them to keep him upright when he swayed. Tony rocked back, rather than falling, and Steve realised he was soothing the baby. The quiet susurration of music from the speakers, and the rocking, and a low thrum in the back of Tony’s throat, to keep the baby happy.   
  
His hands fluttered over them both, and they were so warm, and Tony so focused on the tiny person in his arms. Steve didn’t think Tony would notice he’d been hit, not until the baby was safe.   
  
"Shuuushh, there’s a good girl, who doesn’t like …Welsh folk tunes of the eighteen hundreds. Good job, you have excellent taste…" Tony murmured, and Steve felt like he’d been mown down when Tony closed his eyes to press a comforting kiss to a fleecy hat.   
  
He hadn’t thought about Tony being a dad, but he looked perfect. Soft and sweet and attentive, focused to within an inch of his life.   
  
Steve slumped to his ass against the concrete, shield up against the twisted metal of a duct, and pulled Tony towards him and into his lap. Tony settled immediately, eyes never leaving the baby’s face, and used Steve as a leaning post without seeming to notice.   
  
"I love you," Steve confessed; his timing was terrible, but Tony was just… perfect. Beautiful with care and overflowing with protective body language.   
  
"I love you too, Steve, don’t I Emily? Yes I do," he cooed, absently, his fingers sweeping over ‘Emily’s back nervously.   
  
Steve sat, poleaxed, heartrate cranking up beyond reason, while Tony cooed and rocked within Steve’s protective arms, until Tony glanced sideways at him, eyes sparkling and anything but absent minded.   
  
"We’ll talk later, Captain Handsome."   
  
Steve nodded, dumbly, and pulled Tony tight against his chest for safe keeping.

 


End file.
